Nah Dawntrail is just dogshit. Stormblood was, at worst, kind of boring compared to ARR and HW. Dawntrail is actually fucking awful. It shits on a lot of the consistent qualities that FFXIV has always had (worldbuilding, political intrigue, an ensemble cast, realistic and believable consequences to actions despite having a fantastical setting) for the sake of a shitty setting with an atrocious story that feels like the epitome of HR-approved slop.

There has been a larger volume of general negativity for the game since ShB just because of its increase in popularity, but that's just because there's more people. Of course there's going to be more vocally negative people. Just like there's going to be more vocal toxic positive people that will pretend DT is fine because there's a troon VA in it. The hatred of DT is pretty much universal, though. You'd have to be a retard to argue otherwise. The criticism SB saw was nowhere near as heated, and the defenders have been vindicated by DT being an actually bad story guilty of what every SB criticism claimed.

If we're lucky, Cosmic Exploration and Shades' Triangle might give a bit of value to it and they'll rapidly course-correct the story. It'll still be the worst expansion, but it'll be salvaged a bit by that.

t. played since ARR